[Corporate Democrat]

It's true that Putin's Russia is much improved from Yeltsin's Russia. But things have stagnated in recent years, mostly because oil and gas have also stagnated. But I don't think it's nearly as rosy as you depict.

Russian TV is now completely controlled by the Kremlin, with the removal of the last independent TV channel Dozhd a few months ago. The Internet is free to browse, although Nashi and the Kremlin are known to conduct cyber attacks on opposition websites.

They do not have elections anymore at the provincial level, as Putin has decreed that all governors will be chosen by Moscow. And electoral fraud is on a whole different magnitude to anything in America.

Putin got an Saddam-like 99.5% in Chechnya, with voter turnout of 99.4%, in an region of over one million people. This was just two years ago. Wake me up when Obama declares war on Utah, turns Salt Lake City into the most bombed city on Earth, largely destroys the Mormon resistance while indiscriminately killing civilians, and then in 2014 he gets 99% of the vote from 99% of voters in Utah.

[exit82]

Thanks for that viewpoint.Russian media was freer after 1991, but, according to you, it seems to be evolving back into a State controlled enterprise.

Your last paragraph is food for thought.

[ncalburt]

that poster has been posting hard core Putin KGB internet propaganda non stop all day.

That poster is real busy pushing the KGB lies here.
Very weird.